Potty training

Any advice on how to start? any book to read? any recommendations?

It's not that hard conceptually. In practice, it's all about keeping close watch for a week or so. Granted, our kids were easy so your results may vary


- Try to figure out if your kid notices when he/she pees/poos. Don't start too early in other words.

- Buy one or more potties. If you have more than one floor, one per floor is a good idea.

- Sit kid on potty to show what needs to happen. They tend to catch on.

- Remove expensive rugs from kid areas.

- Let kid run around without diaper.

- Every hour or so, ask if he/she needs to pee, and put kid on potty.

- If all goes well, he/she will soon figure it out and tell you him/herself, and you can extend the intervals. In the end, he/she will just tell you when he/she needs to go.


- Do NOT go back to diaper one day a week or something. This is confusing to baby. Only during naps and night time.

I'd say that the most important thing is that the kid is willing and interested. We just trained our 2.5yo in just a few days -- but she was totally into it.


We found that an important element for our daughter was that she didn't want to go anywhere other than her own setup at first -- so we just made sure to take her before we went outside, and immediately upon coming back inside, plus before and after her nap.


The other sneaky thing that we did was to use intermittent rewards -- so if she had a success we might give her a treat like ice cream. Not always, but we did the first time that she put her pee in the toilet, the first time she put her poop in the toilet and the first time that she told us that she needed to go. Other than that, we were just very encouraging, and gave her a couple more random treats -- so altogether she didn't get more than one treat in any day, and they got less frequent as time went on, but even last night we said "wow, you've been so successful at this, we think it must be time for ice cream!"


Oh, and we read a book when she was on the toilet, and even if she went, we would finish the book [either before she got off, or on a lap after she was dressed again].

i started mine boy a month ago and he is basically potty trained except when we go out for a longer than an hour trip, day nap and night sleep. I started to tell him 2 months ago that he will sit on the 'baby toilet' like mommy to pee and poo. Then one day i got him to sit down, give him some new toys (of cause, car!), he was playing so no pee or poo there for the 1st few times then i told him mommy and daddy did not have wet floor, wet underwear and wet diaper. Then he sit there to read book, that is where in two days he learned all his alphabets and numbers and shapes and colours (a little late bloomer, 2.2 months). One time he said "veevee" and i told him sit down and do it there.... that was the beginning. of cause he wet a few times a day in the beginning but it was ok. Then i saw him a picture of a boy sitting on the potty and said: 'that is you" and he loves it so since then he has been sitting there pee and poo. i gave a month or two for him and never in the hurry. I go straight to boys' underwears than pull-ups. Then i try him on going out to the park without diaper, he wets a few times but it was ok subsiquently. My next step is to get him pull-up off when we are out for shopping or playgroup.


yes, praise him gently and at the end of the day, give him a piece of sugus (his favorite and he called it junk food :) to reward him. not often but when he is least unexpected. I love to watch how his face react when he sees sugus when we are out at the park running!


take it easily and be patient!